Has Baseball's Moment Passed?

Hank Crone is the grandson of a major leaguer and the son of one of the top scouts for the Detroit Tigers. Growing up in north Texas, one of the world's great breeding grounds for baseball talent, there was no question he'd play the family game.

But after a few seasons, the athletically gifted 13-year-old said he found himself absent-mindedly kicking the outfield grass during travel-team games. The problem: he was bored. "I like baseball," he said, "but it's just too slow for me."

ENLARGE

The number of kids aged 7 to 17 playing baseball fell 24% from 2000 to 2009.

Two years ago, Hank dropped baseball for hockey, a game that feeds his love for speed and constant movement. He now plays wing and center for a Chicago-based select team that has traveled to tournaments in Russia and Sweden. "Look, if anyone would want him to play baseball it would be me," said Hank's dad, Ray Crone, Jr. "But you've got to follow your heart in this sort of thing, so let him do what he wants."

As the 2011 Major League Baseball season begins Thursday, the national pastime has a problem. Too many kids like Hank Crone are choosing to dedicate themselves to other sports.

With 11.5 million players of all ages in the U.S., baseball remains the fourth-most-popular team sport, trailing only basketball, soccer and softball.

But over the last 16 years, numbers for Little League Baseball, which accounts for about two-thirds of the country's youth play, have been steadily dropping. And there are signs the pace is accelerating.

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From 2000 to 2009, the latest year for which figures are available, the number of kids aged 7 to 17 playing baseball fell 24%, according to the National Sporting Goods Association, an industry trade group. Despite growing concerns about the long-term effects of concussions, participation in youth tackle football has soared 21% over the same time span, while ice hockey jumped 38%. The Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association, another industry trade group, said baseball participation fell 12.7% for the overall population.

"The days of kids being born with a glove next to their ear in the crib and boys playing catch in the backyard by age three, those are over," said Len Coleman, the former president of the National League.

Coleman, who counts Hall of Famers Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson as close friends, said he watched his son, now 23, drop baseball as a teenager for soccer—the sport he starred in at Georgetown University. "I even tried to keep him interested by having him catch so he'd be involved in every play," Coleman said.

According to scouts, the declining numbers are beginning to alter the talent pool in ways that could have a noticeable impact on player quality. "There are still players, but there aren't the numbers out there anymore," said David Bloom, a scout with the Baltimore Orioles. "The great players just don't stand out like they used to."

Tim Brosnan, an executive vice-president for Major League Baseball, said the recent gloomy studies have prompted the league to order up its own research, which is ongoing, and to review the league's efforts to grow the game. Since 1989, baseball has spent more than $50 million building and renovating fields and creating baseball leagues, especially in urban areas where kids have been abandoning the sport. It has also opened youth training academies in California and Texas to teach all aspects of the game—even umpiring. "We know if you play as a kid you over-index in your propensity to become a fan," Brosnan said. "That's our core right there, so any decline in it is going to get our absolute and full attention."

At the high school level, baseball has held steady with about 15,786 programs in the U.S.—a number that ranks it No. 3 among all boys' sports. Youth sports officials say there's been a small decline in the number of teams, but largely because of funding cutbacks.

As for Little League, which covers kids aged 4 to 18, about two million kids played in the U.S. last year, compared to about 2.5 million in 1996—an overall decline of 25%. The only growth in youth baseball participation since the 1990s, according to the NSGA, has come from kids who play more than 50 times a year—which suggests more children who play baseball have chosen to specialize.

Lance Van Auken, Little League's spokesman, said baseball seems to be morphing into a more-structured year-round activity that requires expensive lessons, equipment and travel. "Our position is that kids should play baseball, soccer, a musical instrument, do scouting, and specialize later on," Van Auken said. "It seems ridiculous that there are eight-year-old travel teams, but there are."

There hasn't been any definitive research on why baseball is losing ground. Anecdotally, parents say it has to do with the game's languid pace—and the fact that other sports do a better job forcing kids to stay alert. "Parents want to see their kids moving," said John Mitchell, a former college baseball coach from Alabama. "They drop their kids off at soccer and they know they're going to run around like maniacs for an hour. When they watch baseball practice, they often see them standing around in the outfield while the coach throws batting practice."

Lou Warner, the principal of Tennessee-based Warner's Athletic, an athletic field construction company, said much of his municipal work these days involves converting the outfields in countless parks into multi-sport facilities for soccer, football and lacrosse use.

Studies suggest more people now play soccer in the U.S. than baseball, and lacrosse participation among kids has more than doubled in the last decade. The number of high school lacrosse programs has been growing by about 7% a year.

Todd Hargrove of Rockwall, Texas, had hoped his son, Colton, would play baseball—the same sport he'd played as a teenager. But Colton Hargrove, 18, chose elite hockey instead—and now plays for the Fargo Force of the U.S. Hockey League. "He's 6 -2, 210 pounds, with big hands," Hargrove said. "Could have thrown a mean forkball if he'd stuck with it."

He didn't. "I'd sort of just be standing there on the field," Colton said. "It was kind of boring."

Coleman said baseball's only hope may be to make some radical changes in youth and high school play. His idea: eliminate the walk. Walks slow the game down, he said, and also rob the best players of opportunities to hit because opposing pitchers get orders from their coaches to walk the other teams' best players. "Give the batter three strikes and tell the pitcher he's got to throw the ball over the plate," Coleman said. "That ought to liven things up."

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